Funny how time flies.
They say it’s when you’re having fun and it moves faster as we age. Does that mean we have more fun as we get
older? Or do we somehow learn to
treasure each moment for the jewel that it is once we learn how quickly the
sparkle fades?
I’m a writer who hasn’t written much of anything for almost
a full year. My words and my time have
been wrapped up, tangled up, caught up and filled up with teaching. A new curriculum. A new system.
A new set of colleagues.
And readjusting.
In the last ten years I should have become accustomed to
change as it has been the only constant.
From Milwaukee to Minneapolis to Thorp to Moscow and back to Milwaukee. From legal secretary to teacher and back
around again. I’ve added age, pounds and
a degree to my status.
In all these ten years, I never expected to live in
Milwaukee again. Yet, here I am.
I thought it would be easier because so much was familiar. Teaching Middle School is where I have the
broadest experience. My apartment is
within a few miles of where I spent the first 40 years of my life. The church I attend is filled with
acquaintances I’ve known for years. The
language is English!
And yet, so much had changed in my ten years hiatus that
nothing was the same except the street signs.
On occasion, I pulled the strings of my history in an
attempt to find my bass line. It was
like walking into a familiar old building whose stone steps and hard wood rails
hold your imprint. Standing outside you
look at its façade and you know it. You
remember when the rain changed the color from white to grey. You see the dip of a thousand hands which
have smoothed the finish on the rail.
You climb the steps, pull the heavy wooden door, peer inside the
familiar, cool entry only to find someone has taken the day guard station and
replaced it with an electronic check-in system.
You look to the left, but the news stand is gone. Where is the gum? The water?
The Grebe’s sandwiches? Instead,
there is only an empty space.
While I was away, time kept moving people and things -
rearranging, renovating, reinventing the common spaces.
Of course, I knew
this would happen. I expected it. I tried to imagine what I might see. I had visited Milwaukee during those years,
but it’s different to live somewhere.
Visitors see only the party make-up, not the morning face.
I didn’t expect it to take me so long to settle back in and
find my way around. I lost my voice and
couldn’t make my pen work right. It kept
me from writing. I needed to find new words to say the old things.
First, it was my work.
I expected words to fall from my heart as they always had before. Instead, I found a new Kris sitting at an old
table with nothing to say. My heart was
poured out a hundred times a week to students whose parched lives drained me.
Second, it was my place.
I struggled to find familiar spaces to get my bearings. Instead, I tired of hearing myself say, “I remember
when this was that.” My memories had
flown away in the lake breeze and no one was there to notice.
I’m not exactly sure why God has brought me back to this
place at this time, except to do this work.
I have lost two close friends suddenly this year. Women whose lives were integral to the
success of others. Women whose families have a gaping hole in their
absence. Taken without warning or
planning. Everyone was healthy and happy
and good one day, and the next found a new chapter being written.
All of these experiences this year have lead me to believe I
have some responsibility, some work, some thing I must do. I feel the weight of it. I pray I don’t disappoint God in its
achievement. I long to be home with
Jesus and yet…. Some weighty chapter holds my feet to the line.
Love lavishly. Seize
the day. Be the change you wish to see. More than Facebook status phrases
for me. It’s my current life description
as the clock ticks. What’s yours?
